Abdulnasser GharemThe Image Is a Public Menace

Abdulnasser Gharem retells his 2015 Riyadh restaging of a 1787 Vienna Academy painting in new paintings, video and a neon, in a space designed by Heimo Zobernig.

In 2015 Gharem had a mannequin cut up in Dubai and reassembled in Riyadh, where such figures were frowned upon, then staged and photographed an art class after Martin Ferdinand Quadal’s 1787 painting of the Vienna Academy’s life-drawing room.

For Aniconism 2026 a Vienna-trained copyist repainted that photograph in Quadal’s technique, filmed by Gharem; a second large painting shows the mannequin being assembled. The Unscored Goal and a neon of the title complete the show, set off by a green curtain by Heimo Zobernig.

Full details at nagel-draxler.de